% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
% ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/cap/chomsky/
% Filename:    articles/chomsky.nation.his-right-to-say-it
% Title:       His Right to Say It
% Author:      Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: The Nation, 28 February 1981
% Source:      transcribed by Don Bashford 
% Keywords:    Faurisson, free speech
% Synopsis:    Chomsky explains his defense of Robert Faurisson
% See-also:    articles/chomsky.farisson-avis, reviews/hitchens.chorus-and-cassandra
				  
                       HIS RIGHT TO SAY IT
                          Noam Chomsky
                  The Nation, 28 February 1981


An article in the _New York Times_ concerning my involvement in
the ``Faurisson affair'' was headlined ``French Storm in a
Demitasse.'' If the intent was to imply that these events do not
even merit being called ``a tempest in a teapot,'' I am inclined
to agree.  Nevertheless, torrents of ink have been spilled in
Europe, and some here. Perhaps, given the obfuscatory nature of
the coverage, it would be useful for me to state the basic facts
as I understand them and to say a few words about the principles
that arise.

In the fall of 1979, I was asked by Serge Thion, a libertarian
socialist scholar with a record of opposition to all forms of
totalitarianism, to sign a petition calling on authorities to
insure Robert Faurisson's ``safety and the free exercise of his
legal rights.'' The petition said nothing about his ``holocaust
studies'' (he denies the existence of gas chambers or of a
systematic plan to massacre the Jews and questions the
authenticity of the Anne Frank diary, among other things), apart
from noting that they were the cause of ``efforts to deprive
Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression.'' It
did not specify the steps taken against him, which include
suspension from his teaching position at the University of Lyons
after the threat of violence, and a forthcoming court trial for
falsification of history and damages to victims of Nazism.

The petition aroused considerable protest. In _Nouvel
Observateur_, Claude Roy wrote that ``the appeal launched by
Chomsky'' supported Faurisson's views. Roy explained my alleged
stand as an attempt to show that the United States is
indistinguishable from Nazi Germany. In _Esprit_, Pierre
Vidal-Naquet found the petition ``scandalous'' on the ground that
it ``presented his `conclusions' as if they were actually
discoveries.'' Vidal-Naquet misunderstood a sentence in the
petition that ran, ``Since he began making his findings public,
Professor Faurisson has been subject to. . . .'' The term
``findings'' is quite neutral. One can say, without
contradiction: ``He made his findings public and they were judged
worthless, irrelevant, falsified . . . .''  The petition implied
nothing about quality of Faurisson's work, which was irrelevant
to the issues raised.

Thion then asked me to write a brief statement on the purely
civil libertarian aspects of this affair. I did so, telling him
to use it as he wished. In this statement, I made it explicit
that I would not discuss Faurisson's work, having only limited
familiarity with it (and, frankly, little interest in it).
Rather, I restricted myself to the civil-liberties issues and the
implications of the fact that it was even necessary to recall
Voltaire's famous words in a letter to M. le Riche: ``I detest
what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for
you to continue to write.''

Faurisson's conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold
and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book
_Peace in the Middle East?_, where I describe the holocaust as
``the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human
history''). But it is elementary that freedom of expression
(including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of
which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views
that are almost universally despised and condemned that this
right must be most vigorously defended. It is easy enough to
defend those who need no defense or to join in unanimous (and
often justified) condemnation of a violation of civil rights by
some official enemy.

I later learned that my statement was to appear in a book in
which Faurisson defends himself against the charges soon to be
brought against him in court. While this was not my intention, it
was not contrary to my instructions. I received a letter from
Jean-Pierre Faye, a well-known anti-Fascist writer and militant,
who agreed with my position but urged me to withhold my statement
because the climate of opinion in France was such that my defense
of Faurisson's right to express his views would be interpreted as
support for them. I wrote to him that I accepted his judgment,
and requested that my statement not appear, but by then it was
too late to stop publication.

Parts of my letter to Fay appeared in the French press and have
been widely quoted and misquoted and subjected to fantastic
interpretations. It was reported, for example, that I repudiated
my comments after having learned that there is anti-Semitism in
France, and that I was changing my views on the basis of
clippings from the French press (in the same letter, I had asked
Faye to send me clippings on another matter). My personal letter
to Faye was incomprehensible to anyone who had not read Faye's
original letter to me; a telephone call would quickly have
clarified the facts.

The uproar that ensued is of some interest. In _Le Matin_
(socialist), Jacques Baynac wrote that my fundamental error was
to ``defend, in the name of freedom of expression, the right to
mock the facts''---``facts'' determined, presumably, by some
board of commissars or a reconstituted Inquisition. My lengthy
discussion on the implications of this doctrine was from the
occasionally recognizable version of the interview with me
published in _Le Matin_.  In _Le Monde_, the editor of _Esprit_,
Paul Thibaud, wrote that I had condemned ``the entire French
intelligentsia,'' launching a ``general accusation'' against
``les Francais'' without qualifications. Alberto Cavallari, Paris
correspondent for the _Corriere della Sera_ went further still,
claiming that I had condemned all of ``French culture.'' The
article is notable for a series of fabricated quotes designed to
establish this and other allegations. What I had written was that
though I would make some harsh comments about ``certain segments
of the French intelligentsia . . . certainly, what I say does not
apply to many others, who maintain a firm commitment to
intellectual integrity. . . . I would not want these comments to
be misunderstood as applying beyond their specific scope.''
Similar qualifications are removed from the doctored
``interview'' in _Le Matin_, enabling the editors to allege that
I describe France as ``totalitarian.''

Cavallari went on to explain that my rage against ``French
culture'' derives from its refusal to accept the theory that
linguistics proves that ``the Gulag descends directly from
Rousseau'' and other imbecile ideas he chooses to attribute to me
for reasons best known to himself.  In _Nouvel Observateur_,
Jean-Paul Enthoven offers a different explanation: I support
Faurisson because my ``instrumentalist theory of language, the
`generative grammar' . . . does not allow the means to think of
the unimaginable, that is the holocaust.'' He and Cavallari,
among others, explain further that my defense of Faurisson is a
case of the extreme left joining the extreme right, a phenomenon
to which they devote many sage words. In _Le Matin_, Catherine
Clement explains my odd behavior on the ground that I am a
``perfect Bostonian,'' ``a cold and distant man, without real
social contacts, incapable of understanding Jewish-American
humor, which relies heavily on Yiddish.'' Pierre Daix explains in
_Le Quotidien de Paris_ that I took up left-wing causes to
``clear myself'' of the reactionary implications of my
``innatism.'' And so on, at about the same level.

To illustrate the caliber of discussion, after I had noted that
Vidal-Naquet's comment cited above was based on a
misunderstanding, he reprinted his article in a book (_Les
Juifs_, F. Maspero), eliminating the passage I quoted and adding
an appendix in which he claims falsely that ``the error in
question had appeared only in an earlier draft,'' which I am
accused of having illegitimately quoted. The example is,
unfortunately, quite typical.

A number of critics (for example Abraham Forman of the
Anti-Defamation League in _Le Matin_) contend that the only issue
is Faurisson's right to publish and that this has not been
denied. The issue, however, is his suspension from the university
because of threats of violence against him, and his court trial.
It is of interest that his attorney, Yvon Chotard, who is
defending him on grounds of freedom of expression and the right
to an attorney of one's choice, has been threatened with
expulsion from the anti-Fascist organization that is bringing
Faurisson to trial.

As Faye predicted, many showed themselves incapable of
distinguishing between defense of the right of free expression
and defense of the views expressed---and not only in France. In
_The New Republic_, Martin Peretz concluded from my expressed
lack of interest in Faurisson's work that I am an ``agnostic''
about the holocaust and ``a fool'' about genocide. He claims
further that I deny freedom of expression to my opponents,
referring to my comment that one degrades oneself by entering
into debate over certain issues. In short, if I refuse to debate
you, I constrain your freedom. He is careful to conceal the
example I cited: the holocaust.

Many writers find it scandalous that I should support the right
of free expression for Faurisson without carefully analyzing his
work, a strange doctrine which, if adopted, would effectively
block defense of civil rights for unpopular views. Faurisson does
not control the French press or scholarship. There is surely no
lack of means or opportunity to refute or condemn his writings.
My own views in sharp opposition to his are clearly on record, as
I have said. No rational person will condemn a book, however
outlandish its conclusions may seem, without at least reading it
carefully; in this case, checking the documentation offered, and
so on. One of the most bizarre criticisms has been that by
refusing to undertake this task, I reveal that I have no interest
in six million murdered Jews, a criticism which, if valid,
applies to everyone who shares my lack of interest in examining
Faurisson's work. One who defends the right of free expression
incurs no special responsibility to study or even be acquainted
with the views expressed. I have, for example, frequently gone
well beyond signing petitions in support of East European
dissidents subjected to repression or threats, often knowing
little and caring less about their views (which in some cases I
find obnoxious, a matter of complete irrelevance that I never
mention in this connection). I recall no criticism of this stand.

The latter point merits further comment. I have taken far more
controversial stands than this in support of civil liberties and
academic freedom. At the height of the Vietnam War, I publicly
took the stand that people I regard as authentic war criminals
should not be denied the right to teach on political or
ideological grounds, and I have always taken the same stand with
regard to scientists who ``prove'' that blacks are genetically
inferior, in a country where their history is hardly pleasant,
and where such views will be used by racists and neo-Nazis.
Whatever one thinks of Faurisson, no one has accused him of being
the architect of major war crimes or claiming that Jews are
genetically inferior (though it is irrelevant to the
civil-liberties issue, he writes of the ``heroic insurrection of
the Warsaw ghetto'' and praises those who ``fought courageously
against Nazism'' in ``the right cause''). I even wrote in 1969
that it would be wrong to bar counterinsurgency research in the
universities, though it was being used to murder and destroy, a
position that I am not sure I could defend. What is interesting
is that these far more controversial stands never aroused a peep
of protest, which shows that the refusal to accept the right of
free expression without retaliation, and the horror when others
defend this right, is rather selective.

The reaction of the PEN Club in Paris is also interesting. PEN
denounces my statements on the ground that they have given
publicity to Faurisson's writing at a time when there is a
resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is odd that an organization
devoted to freedom of expression for authors should be exercised
solely because Faurisson's defense against the charges brought
against him is publicly heard.  Furthermore, if publicity is
being accorded to Faurisson, it is because he is being brought to
trial (presumably, with the purpose of airing the issues) and
because the press has chosen to create a scandal about my defense
of his civil rights. On many occasions, I have written actual
prefaces and endorsements for books in France--- books that are
unread and unknown, as indeed is the case generally with my own
writings. The latter fact is illustrated, for example, by
Thibaud, who claims that I advocated ``confiding Vietnamese
freedom to the supposed good will of the leaders of the North.''
In fact, my writings on the war were overwhelmingly devoted to
the U.S. attack on the peasant society of the South (and later
Laos and Cambodia as well), which aimed to undermine the
neutralization proposals of the National Liberation Front and
others and to destroy the rural society in which the NLF was
based, and I precisely warned that success in this effort ``will
create a situation in which, indeed, North Vietnam will
necessarily dominate Indochina, for no other viable society will
remain.''

Thibaud's ignorant falsifications point to one of the real
factors that lie behind this affair. A number of these critics
are ex-Stalinists, or people like Thibaud, who is capable of
writing that prior to Solzhenitsyn, ``every previous account'' of
``Sovietism'' was within the Trotskyite framework (_Esprit_).
Intellectuals who have recently awakened to the possibility of an
anti-Leninist critique often systematically misunderstand a
discussion of revolutionary movements and efforts to crush them
that has never employed the assumptions they associate with the
left. Thibaud, for example, cannot understand why I do not share
his belief that Lenin, Stalin and Pol Pot demonstrate ``the
failure of socialism.'' Many left or ex-left intellectuals seem
unaware that I never have regarded Leninist movements as having
anything to do with ``socialism'' in any meaningful sense of the
term; or that, having grown up in the libertarian anti-Leninist
left, familiar since childhood with works that Thibaud has still
never heard of, I am unimpressed with their recent conversions
and unwilling to join in their new crusades, which often strike
me as morally dubious and intellectually shallow. All of this has
led to a great deal of bitterness on their part and not a little
outright deceit.

As for the resurgence of anti-Semitism to which the PEN Club
refers, or of racist atrocities, one may ask if the proper
response to publication of material that may be used to enhance
racist violence and oppression is to deny civil rights. Or is it,
rather, to seek the causes of these vicious developments and work
to eliminate them? To a person who upholds the basic ideas
professed in the Western democracies, or who is seriously
concerned with the real evils that confront us, the answer seems
clear.

There are, in fact, far more dangerous manifestations of
``revisionism'' than Faurisson's. Consider the effort to show
that the United States engaged in no crimes in Vietnam, that it
was guilty only of ``intellectual error.'' This ``revisionism,''
in contrast to that of Faurisson, is supported by the major
institutions and has always been the position of most of the
intelligentsia, and has very direct and ugly policy consequences.
Should we then argue that people advocating this position be
suspended from teaching and brought to trial? The issue is, of
course, academic. If the version of the Zhdanov doctrine now
being put forth in the Faurisson affair were adopted by people
with real power, it would not be the ``Vietnam revisionists'' who
would be punished.

I do not want to leave the impression that the whole of the
French press has been a theater of the absurd or committed to
such views as those reviewed. There has been accurate commentary
in _Le Monde_ and _Liberation_, for example, and a few people
have taken a clear and honorable stand. Thus Alfred Grosser, who
is critical of what he believes to be my position, writes in _Le
Quotidien de Paris_: ``I consider it shocking that Mr. Faurisson
should be prevented from teaching French literature at the
University of Lyons on the pretext that his security cannot be
guaranteed.''

In the Italian left-liberal journal _Repubblica_, Barbara
Spinelli writes that the real scandal in this affair is the fact
that even a few people publicly affirm their support of the right
to express ideas that are almost universally reviled---and that
happen to be diametrically opposed to their own. My own
observation is different.  It seems to me something of a scandal
that it is even necessary to debate these issues two centuries
after Voltaire defended the right of free expression for views he
detested. It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of
the holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers.